Clue

The Mystery of Camelot Solved

Three alternative endings provide explanations of the top theories for the JFK assassination.

In 1985, the movie Clue was released
to lukewarm response. The film had a strong ensemble cast of talented comic
actors, but no major box office names. Audiences and critics alike were left
confused by the movie’s gimmick—three different endings. Theatre
audiences saw one of three endings depending on which screen they chose,
but the videotape and DVD releases contain all three endings. The film found
a wide audience on video and cable television and it now has a minor cult
following.

Some of its popularity can be explained by viewers’ (most likely unconscious)
recognition that much more is going on in the film than is apparent at first
glance. Clue, in fact, is really about the most famous unsolved
murder of the twentieth century—the assassination of President John
Fitzgerald Kennedy. The film is set in New England, where the Kennedy clan
comes from and still largely resides, and because it opens in 1954, years
before Kennedy emerged on the national scene, it gives viewers a grim preview
of the events that would occur in nine years. In presenting a vastly complicated
murder plot, it also presents three possible solutions to the Kennedy mystery,
one of which is an obvious favorite.

Ending 1

In this ending, it is revealed that Miss Scarlet is the murderer. She plans
to continue to blackmail the remaining guests not for money but for their
secrets. It turns out that while she runs a house of prostitution, her real
business is dealing in high-level government secrets. She is, in effect,
a spy. The Miss Scarlet ending represents the idea that a Communist conspiracy
killed John Kennedy. In this theory, Communist factions held Kennedy responsible
for the Bay of Pigs fiasco. U.S. tension with Communist countries was at
an all-time high during the Cuban Missile Crisis; the world was on the brink
of nuclear war for thirteen days. According to this theory, a Communist element,
be it an entire country or a fanatical splinter group, driven by hatred of
Kennedy, killed him.

Evidence? One immediately notes that her alias is Miss Scarlet—a shade
of red, the identifying color of the Communist party and Communist nations—“Red
China,” “the Red Menace.” The Russians did have several
spies in place in top-level government institutions (Aldrich Ames et al.).
Miss Scarlet deals in secrets. She could easily be under contract to a Communist
power.

The idea is given further credence in the scene where Col. Mustard and Miss
Scarlet, while searching the house for the murderer, come upon the ballroom.
Col. Mustard tells her to check behind the curtains while he searches the
kitchen. What follows is a long series of shots splicing Miss Scarlet with
images of these thick, heavy curtains, symbolic of her relationship with
the Iron Curtain and reflecting the air of secrecy and censorship that surrounded
the Communist Soviet Union. Taking all of this into account, Scarlet clearly
represents the theory of a Communist murder conspiracy, one that the United
States did not want to investigate publicly because of the threat of thermonuclear
war.

Ending 2

Mrs. Peacock is revealed as the murderer in the second ending. This represents
the theory of both the Warren Commission and Gerald Posner’s book Case
Closed—that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin of President
Kennedy.

Oswald was known as awkward around people and very much a loner. Mrs. Peacock
is presented in the movie as socially awkward. At dinner, she makes a spectacle
of herself trying to make conversation with the other guests who are repelled
by her overbearing personality. Her weird headpiece, made of what appears
to be leaves and feathers, is another sign of her social ineptitude.

An item that makes this identification more credible is that Mrs. Peacock,
like Oswald, has government connections. Mrs. Peacock is the wife of a senator
and has connections that allow her influence and her to be influenced, as
did Lee Harvey Oswald. She is being blackmailed for taking bribes from a
foreign power in order to deliver her senator husband’s vote on certain
key issues. She is, in effect, a double agent. Oswald himself defected to
Russia after receiving intelligence training in the Marines and education
in the Russian language. His defection appears to have been a U.S. intelligence
operation to put an operative deep inside the Russian intelligence community.
Like Mrs. Peacock, Oswald was a double agent.

The Oswald theory of the Kennedy assassination is regarded as flawed. The
House Committee on Assassinations declared in 1977 that a “probable
conspiracy” is what killed Kennedy. This fits into the Peacock-as-Oswald
motif perfectly. There is a plot hole in the movie that blemishes the second
ending. Mrs. Peacock, as the murder, supposedly switches off the electricity
(located at the top of the cellar staircase) and murders the last three victims.
Yet immediately after we see a gloved hand turn off the electricity, we cut
to Mrs. Peacock, deep in the cellar, backing into the furnace and thinking
it is the lecherous Professor Plum; she yells out “Don’t touch
me” and slaps the furnace. It is a funny moment, but it renders the
second ending impossible. She couldn’t have done that if she was the
one who flipped the switch. She couldn’t have gotten from one place
to the other so quickly, particularly if she was busy killing three people.
The Oswald theory is likewise flawed because of chronological impossibilities.
The Warren Commission stated that Oswald got off three shots in six seconds
with an old, manual bolt action Manlicher Carcano rifle. He then was able
to sprint down several flights of stairs and appear perfectly relaxed when
he ran into the police, who were by now in the book depository. It’s
highly unlikely that he could have done so much in so little time. The fact
that the Peacock ending is flawed makes it all the more similar to the sketchy “angry
lone nut” theory that casts all blame on Lee Harvey Oswald.

Ending 3

The final ending is preceded by a title card that reads, “But here
is what really happened.” It presents the true story as being that everyone is
in fact guilty of at least one murder. This massive conspiracy is evocative
of the theory Jim Marrs puts forth in his book Crossfire: The Plot that
Killed Kennedy. It was mainly on this book that Oliver Stone based his
own assassination theory, presented in the 1991 film JFK.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that the cook’s name is Mrs. Ho and the
executive producer of JFK is A. Kitman Ho.

The Marrs/Stone theory presents the idea that Kennedy was killed by a massive
and far-reaching government conspiracy. This theory is immediately evident
in the third ending of Clue. As all of the characters arrive, an
early and cheap joke has everyone step in dog excrement outside, which is
actually a preview of the movie’s true ending. Everyone is guilty.
Everyone has shit on his or her shoes. Let’s take it character by character.

Mr. Green is actually an FBI agent. The FBI was instrumental in suppressing
and covering up vital parts of the Kennedy assassination. Some say that J.
Edgar Hoover knew about the plot for the Kennedy assassination before it
happened but remained silent because of his deep hatred for the Kennedys.
Others suggest he took an active role in the cover-up that followed the assassination.
J. Edgar Hoover actually calls for Mr. Green during the movie. Taking it
a step further, we discover that Mr. Green’s guilty secret is that
he is a homosexual, which J. Edgar Hoover is rumored to have been during
his life. Mr. Green thus represents the FBI and specifically Hoover’s
involvement in the Kennedy affair.

Col. Mustard murders the motorist in the final ending. He is representative
of the military and specifically the Pentagon’s involvement in the
Kennedy affair (he does have a top-secret Pentagon job). Stone suggests that
a Pentagon and military faction wanted Kennedy dead because he planned to
withdraw from Vietnam. The scene in JFK with Donald Sutherland appearing
as “X” presents this theory fully. To them, pulling out of Vietnam
was a sign of weakness. The Pentagon generals feared Kennedy would lose Vietnam
to the Communists as they thought he had lost Cuba. They also, it is alleged,
had personal money invested in various arms contractors. They were after
the lucrative arms contracts that a full blown war would bring. They thus
needed someone in the office of commander-in-chief who would commit to war.
Col. Mustard identifies himself as a war profiteer. This is the secret the
motorist gives Mr. Body in order to blackmail him. Col. Mustard, in order
to both allow and hide his war profiteering, killed the motorist, much as
the Pentagon generals, in this theory, killed Kennedy.

The motorist himself represents the limo driver who slowed down the Presidential
motorcade to twelve miles per hour while driving in Dealey Plaza, thus allowing
an easier shot at Kennedy.

Mrs. Peacock represents Oswald here again, but not as the sole killer. Instead,
she represents Oswald’s involvement and possible knowledge of the conspiracy.

Miss Scarlet once again represents the Communist element of the massive
conspiracy.

Wadsworth the Butler, who is revealed in ending three as actually being
the real Mr. Body—and thus the real blackmailer—is representative
of the Mafia’s involvement in the Kennedy assassination. He is involved
in blackmail, extortion, and murder, the known bread and butter of organized
crime.

Miss White, who dresses completely in black clothing, represents the role
played in the Kennedy assassination by such racist factions and people as
the KKK and Guy Banister. Kennedy’s administration saw great strides
made in civil rights. Integration and civil rights legislation were integral
parts of Kennedy’s domestic program. The dissociation in Mrs. White
between her name and her clothing symbolizes racial tension exploding into
racist factions and thus providing assistance to the conspirators, one of
whom was Guy Banister, played by Ed Asner in JFK.

Professor Plum represents the doctors who botched the Kennedy autopsy and
damaged and lost vital evidence. When Mr. Body is shot for the first time,
Professor Plum declares him to be dead. He botches the most obvious part
of an autopsy as we find out that he was in fact faking his own death in
order to escape. The naval doctors who performed Kennedy’s autopsy
have long been accused of incompetence and being manipulated by higher powers
to willfully bungle the autopsy.

The police offer who stops by the house and is killed in the third ending
by Miss Scarlet is representative of the corrupt Dallas Police Department,
which lost key evidence, allowed Jack Ruby into the police station to kill
Oswald, and generally made a mess of things. The Clue cop is corrupt
as well, for we find out that he was on Miss Scarlet’s payroll.

The cook, Mrs. Ho, is a woman of undetermined Asian descent. She represents
the underlying tension of the escalating Vietnam situation. The Vietnam era
produced such a great amount of government lies and deception that it is
no wonder that she, like the country at that time, is stabbed in the back.

Finally, we have two secondary female characters. The singing telegram girl
who is shot within seconds of appearing onscreen is a former patient and
lover of Professor Plum and had caused him to lose his license as a psychiatrist.
She later informed on him to Mr. Body. Yvette the maid is revealed as being
a call girl who worked for Miss Scarlett. She had an affair with Mrs. White’s
husband, which led to Mrs. White killing her. These women represent Kennedy’s
legendary sexual voracity and adultery. Marrs suggests that Kennedy’s
secret love affairs made him more vulnerable to assassination attempts because
it is easier to kill someone with something significant to hide than to kill
someone who is innocent.

Also consider the fact that everyone who is killed was one of Mr. Body’s
network of informers. This is a representation of the fact that, after the
Kennedy assassination, many witnesses and observers died under mysterious
circumstances, as if the government that killed Kennedy was tying up its
loose ends. And indeed, the third ending of Clue ties up the loose
ends nicely, dramatizing the now famous conspiracy theories of the Kennedy
assassination by revealing the massive conspiracy at the heart of all of
its murders.

Rob Shure is an undergraduate Communication Arts major at Marymount Manhattan College. He is currently hard at work on his next piece for Metaphilm. He would love to write for a living. He also thinks that his current sneakers might be his all-time best.